Hendrix Fire Letterpress: edition of 450, sold out

OBEY’s Hendrix Fire Letterpress is sold out at US $65. The signed and numbered edition of 450 measures 10 × 13 inches on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges. It released August 6, 2026 at 10 a.m. PDT.

This is the letterpress edition, identified by its smaller format and paper treatment. The official preview image shows an artist’s proof; it does not promise an AP-numbered copy from the standard edition.

Collector context

Hendrix Fire Letterpress revisits an existing Fairey portrait through a different print format. In his 2026 announcement, Fairey says the image had previously appeared only within his 50 Shades of Black box set. Its new appearance is therefore best understood as a return to an earlier composition, with a separate physical edition and a new way of experiencing the paper and printed surface.

The 2014 box-set announcement explains the original setting: fifty signed and numbered screen prints, each in a 12-inch-square album-cover format, gathered into an edition of 200 sets. The package included a stencil and sticker sheet inside a handmade box. Hendrix belonged to a much larger sequence of imagined record sleeves. Releasing the portrait on its own changes the encounter: the viewer can focus on one musician without first encountering the surrounding collection of fifty designs.

That sequence had a life in exhibitions as well as boxes. The contemporary account of 50 Shades of Black connects the 2014 Subliminal Projects show to Revolutions at Robert Berman Gallery in 2011 and Sound & Vision at Stolen Space in 2012. Visitors to the 2014 exhibition could play records from Fairey’s collection. The Hendrix image thus emerged from a project organized around listening, record sleeves and the physical rituals of music, which gives the later print a richer setting than an isolated celebrity likeness.

The title also reflects a particular enthusiasm. Fairey’s 2026 statement singles out the groove and vocal character of “Fire,” alongside Hendrix’s songwriting. In the image, the portrait sits inside an ornate circular frame above stacked lettering. The tightly organized border and radiating lines concentrate attention on the face. This visual reading fits a tribute concerned with the musician’s presence, rather than an illustration of a guitar performance.

The production change is consequential. Pace Prints explains screenprinting as ink passing through a stenciled mesh. In his separate Welcome Visitors account, Fairey describes letterpress as ink transferred from a raised plate under pressure, creating an impression in the sheet. The 2026 Hendrix release uses cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges, giving its border and surface a different role from the earlier square screen print.

The image shown here is an official artist-proof preview, visibly marked AP, not a photograph of a numbered production copy. The Fitzwilliam Museum’s definition distinguishes artists’ proofs from the numbered edition and notes that they can be made at the same time. That label preserves what the photograph actually shows while allowing the earlier composition and the new letterpress treatment to be considered together.

More Shepard Fairey releases.

Source: official product or release details.